Patlabor: The Mobile Police - Wallpaper and Scan Gallery

Patlabor: The Mobile Police Series

In the late '90s, Japan faces rising crime due to the new Labor industry - Labors being large, robot-like vehicles used
primarily in construction. Due to this rise in Labor crime, a Patrol Labor department is created, Patlabor for short.
Into this division comes the cheerful, labor-loving Noa Izumi, who joins
Division Two of this fledgling department and swiftly becomes the pilot of Unit One - or Alphonse as she calls it.

The show follows the ups, downs and occasionally hilarious lives of Noa and her teammates: and what a motley
bunch they are. Main characters include the deceptively intelligent Division Two captain Goto; the knowledgable but impatient Unit One backup (strategist) Asuma; trigger-happy Unit Two pilot Isao; the henpecked Unit Two backup Shinshi; gentle giant Hiromi and wildcard American pilot Kanuka, not to mention the unruly bunch that are the mechanics.

Spanning one 47-episode TV series, three films and two OVA mini series, the Patlabor universe is diverse and
lengthy, and despite featuring mecha never concentrates on them - indeed many episodes have no action scenes whatsoever.
The TV series and OVA's show us the often comical, occasionally touching evolution of the members of Division Two,
whereas the first two films are serious political works, dealing with issues of corruption and cover-ups in government,
and of course crime.

Member Opinions

The Patlabor series is a good change of pace for mecha anime aand it feels more grounded where the timeline of the story
takes place. My favorite character in Patlabor is definitely Kanuka, she's amazing and quite the badass. I think
episodes 5-6 of the 1st OVA should've been shown last as Ep. 7 felt too random to be a good concluding episode. As far
as the two movies are concerned, I feel the 1st was a bit better than the 2nd in terms of story and action, as well as
being a fine example of a cautionary tale of the advancements of technology and the struggle of man vs. machine. The 2nd
is good in its' own right as a political thriller, but the final battle scene wasn't as exciting as the one from the 1st
and was rather vague in Nagumo's story with Tsuge in regards to their past relationship. The TV series is a fun watch to
see the characters more fleshed out. That bratty pilot of the Griffon was annoying and it would've been nice if there
were some episodes with Kanuka in New York to break the monotony of the random episodes with Noa and the gang in the
last quarter of the TV series. Ep. 44 wasn't enough in regards to Kanuka's appearance in the last quarter. The OVA
follow-up is a mixed bag with some good episodes and some that are completely useless, overall a disappointment.